Neighbor Of San Bernardino Shooter Arrested On Terror Charges

Enrique Marquez purchased the guns used by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in the San Bernardino shooting.

Enrique Marquez, 24, has been charged with multiple counts of aiding and conspiring with terrorists for allegedly supplying guns to the San Bernardino shooters earlier this month, The New York Times reports.

Marquez reportedly bought the guns for his long-time friend and neighbor, Syed Rizwan Farook, and allegedly took part in planning earlier shootings that would have targeted Southern California and Riverside Community College, which both men attended. Marquez told officials immediately about their worship of al-Qaeda and violent Islamist propaganda during his arrest.

After Marquez got cold feet during their now defunct-attack plan, Farook’s wife Tashfeen Malik assisted him in his next plan–the San Bernardino shooting. The couple killed 14 people at a holiday party on Dec. 2 at the health department where Farook once worked.

Marquez was working at a local Wal-Mart when the attacks happened, but called a 911 operator and his mother shortly after to confess to his role in the plan. The following day, he took himself to the hospital, drunk and upset. He was later placed in a psychiatric ward and held involuntarily.

In addition to the two assault rifles purchased for Farook by Marquez, he also allegedly bought smokeless powder to make explosives in 2012. The couple placed one of their own homemade smoke bombs in the area of the San Bernardino shooting, but it did not go off.

In the freeway assault, they believed the bombs would disable cars and halt traffic, and then “Farook planned to move among the stopped vehicles, shooting his rifle into them, and killing people,” F.B.I. agent, Joel T. Anderson, wrote in an affidavit. Mr. Marquez was to shoot motorists and emergency medical workers arriving on the scene, and “according to Marquez, his priority was to shoot law enforcement personnel before shooting lifesaving personnel.”

Discussing a period of time in 2011, Agent Anderson wrote,

“Marquez spent most of his time at Farook’s residence, where he read, listened to lectures and watched videos involving radical Islamic content,” including videos from the Shabab, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia.

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They looked at Inspire, the official magazine of Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen — Mr. Farook even spoke of going to that country to join the group — and read the works of clerics like Abdullah Azzam, a founder of Al Qaeda, who was killed in 1989.

Marquez is also facing charges for an immigration wedding sham. Marquez married a Russian immigrant who paid him $200 a month in order to gain legal immigration status.

He is more than likely to use a defense that he was brainwashed by Farook. He met the shooter when he was 13-years-old and was subsequently exposed to a radical form of Islam ideology.

Marquez could face up to 15 years in prison for the conspiracy charges. The firearms and visa charges carry ten years each.